Five: The Misery of the PlayStation 3

Thank God for Guitar Hero, huh Sony?

Normally I'd fear arousing the ire of the Sony nation by printing a headline like that, but it takes someone actually owning the PS3 to defend it. Alas, very few people got their hands on a PlayStation 3 before Christmas, and many of those that did simply aren’t overwhelmed. It’s an indication that things certainly weren’t peachy for Sony’s gaming division in the year 2006, an undeniably miserable annum.

2006 actually started out as pretty promising for Sony and those of us anxiously awaiting the release of the PlayStation 3. For one, the company maintained that it would and could still make its "Spring 2006" release date for the very powerful console. However, as February and March arrived the PS3 did not, and the system was inevitably pushed back until the fall.

Over the course of that period, some significant events happened under the surface. Although many gamers were well aware that the PlayStation 3 wasn't on retailer shelves as expected, few knew that Sony was slowly losing important game titles. Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar announced it would release the next edition of the franchise on the Xbox 360 at the same time as the PS3 version. In addition, promising titles Assassins Creed and Fatal Inertia, which were to be Sony exclusives, eventually also flocked to Xbox 360 (they'll come out in 2007).

By the fall, anticipation over the PS3, despite these issues, was reaching a peak. Hey, it's still awesome - a Blu-ray player under the hood, cell processor, ultra powerful GPU…it all adds up to a sweet machine. But, then the news came that only 400,000 were to be available to the American public for the first period. That's not many, and feelings of frustration and eventually apathy set in among gamers interested in Sony's latest hardware.

So, very few people own a PS3 at the moment. I count myself lucky for having tested it alongside Wayde who wrote the bulk of our review back in November. How did we feel about it? Well, I think Wayde was more thrilled than I was, seeing as how he's a hi-fi guy first and gamer second. The Blu-ray is certainly exceptional, but the lack of quality games disappointed this writer. To call Resistance: Fall of Man a "killer app" is a complete lie. The PS3 simply has no killer app, at least, not yet.

However, I do see promise. The PS3 will evolve, and it'll improve. But, the loss of some key exclusives means Sony has its work cut out for it, especially as the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii continue to scratch - no, slash - their way into the PlayStation's dominance of the console market.